Introduction of indigenous raw materials in fish for snakehead murrel, Channa striatus (Bloch, 1801) and their effects on its growth and feed utilization

Abstract

The present study was carried out to the introduction of indigenous raw materials in fish diets for snakehead murrel, Channa striatus and their effects on its growth and feed utilization. Wild fish was collected from the kaoran bazaar fish market. The experiment was conducted during 40days in re-circulating system composed of 6 tanks containing 500 L of water each. 16 larvae were stocked per tank. To evaluate the effect of laboratory made feed and commercial feed on growth performance, feed utilization and body composition in Channa striatus an experiment was carried out in Department of Fisheries, University of Dhaka. Channa striatus with initial weight 82.69±0.05g for the treatment and 81.27±0.50g for the control were reared in the plastic tanks. There were three replicas for each group. Initial length for both groups was 23.48 cm and was fed with two types of feeds, laboratory made feed (LMF) for the treatment and commercial feed (CF) for the control which were isonitrogenus ( 22% crude protein ) in nature. Due to the presence of fish meal, mustard oil cake, soybean grit, rice polish, wheat bran and maize, laboratory made feed (LMF) was proved to be the best protenacious feed between the two feed tested. Significant differences (P<0.05) in body weight gain and protein efficiency ratio were observed in fishes when they were fed with two types of feed such as LMF and CF. There were significant differences (P<0.05) in feed conversion ratio. Specific growth rate and mean body weight were higher in fish fed with LMF feed. Significant differences were also observed in case of final body composition fed with two types of feed. The study suggests that the LMF diets, which led to significantly higher (P<0.05) growth and nutrient utilization than the CF diets in Channa striatus will be helpful towards the development of pond culture of these fish species. Wastage of indigenous ingredients due to illiteracy of manipulating will be reduced. Although LMF and CF feed contain same level of protein but LMF feed comparatively cheap and it significantly (P<0.05) provided better performance in all case such as growth performances, body composition and feed utilization of Channa striatus.